


Sharing her Pain

by D (Crazyrat909)



Series: Doki Doki AU (Alternate Universe) [1]
Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: Depression, Doki Doki Literature Club! Spoilers, Friendship, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 23:32:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16820656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crazyrat909/pseuds/D
Summary: "What do you do when you know something about a person, and you want to help them, but you don’t really know how?" -Sayori AkiyamaWeeks after the festival, Sayori decided to get closer with the fiery pink haired Natsuki, who she had always had a distant fondness for. However, when Sayori discovers a shocking revelation about her new friend, she is conflicted as to what she should do. Should she risk staying silent, and allow her friend to suffer in silence, or should she speak out, and jeopardize her newfound friendship? All is revealed in this roller coaster of emotions, drama and secrecy.





	Sharing her Pain

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first submission. I decided to upload this after a friend of mine decided we should both write a fan fiction by the end of November. I originally intended this to be a meme, but it morphed into an actual story I thought y'all would enjoy. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy, and leave any criticisms in the comments below!
> 
> -D

**Sharing her Pain**

Bruises. This was all that was clouded Sayori’s thoughts as she aimlessly rummaged through the classroom closet. She had first noticed the bruises on her pink haired friend while they were baking together. Since she had never been very close with Natsuki, she thought it would be a fun idea to invite her over to her house, as she had done previously with the other girls (and Kaito of course). When asked what she would like to do, Natsuki decided on baking cupcakes as a surprise for the club, and Sayori happily (And hungrily) obliged. The day had gone well outside of Natsuki’s initial sour attitude, which had all but disappeared as she grew more comfortable around Sayori. This was, until Natsuki decided to grab a bowl out of a cabinet that had been just out of her reach. The pinket’s vain attempts to reach for the cabinet door had caused her frilly white shirt to lift past her bellybutton, revealing a horrific tapestry of dark blue and purple marks, spanning across her back. Realizing that Natsuki hadn’t yet caught onto the fact that her damaged body had been discovered, Sayori thought it best to keep this newfound revelation to herself, much to her own dismay. Sayori wanted to believe that there was some obvious piece to this puzzle that she was missing, some crystal-clear explanation that would clear up the confusion she felt over how her friend had accumulated so many bruises along her body. However, the more the girls began to enjoy each other’s company, the more that Sayori’s illusion of innocence began to shatter, as she noticed all the little signs she had missed in the club room. How her friend would react viciously to being touched, how she would wince whenever she sat down or moved too quickly, how just below the surface of her heavy makeup would reveal the stark traces of scars and past abuses. These undeniable signs began to swell and congeal in Sayori’s mind and left her with only one horrifying conclusion that she carried with her, like an open wound left to fester and bleed while no one even sees the trail it leaves.

“Hey!” Natsuki shouted to the preoccupied Sayori, who had nearly jumped out of her skin at the exclamation from her friend. “If you’re gonna take ten years to find whatever it is you’re looking for, can you at least get my manga for me?” Sayori, still startled from being shaken from her thoughts, nervously obliges.

“Yeah, sorry hehe, I was just distracted.” Sayori states, trying her best to hide her discontent with her current situation. “Here ya go!”

“It’s about time, jeez! What are you even doing up there?”

“Oh, uh… I was just, uh…” Sayori’s voice begins to quiver, being put on the spot with no real answer to give her friend. Natsuki, being as observant as she is impatient, swiftly takes notice and moves the situation along.

“Look, it doesn’t matter!” she sighs, snatching the heavy box from Sayori’s hands. “just…hurry up so we can read ok? I think Monika is about to make us start sharing poems soon.”

“Ok! Be right down!” Sayori exclaims, before taking a minute to collect herself. Natsuki pauses before taking the box back to the corner of the classroom and turns her attention back to her clearly disgruntled clubmate.

“Hey, not that I really care or anything…but, you know you can talk to me, right? I know you’re upset about something so don’t keep it to yourself dummy.”

Sayori, clearly taken aback by the thought of someone worry about her, quickly responds. “Haha, what do you mean, I’m fine! Just a little sleepy is all, I was up all night watching cat videos on YouTube, so that’s probably why! I almost fell asleep in chemistry too, Mr. Takanawa was so mad at me haha!” Natsuki, clearly unconvinced, hesitates before responding with a meager ‘ok’, before placing the Parfait Girls boxset in the corner of the room. Sayori slowly steps down from the small step ladder that Monika had purchased for the clubroom after the “incident” that occurred between Kaito and Natsuki, and makes her way over to her petite friend, who had already begun reading.

The pair continues from where they had left off, with Natsuki pointing out interesting plot points and funny tidbits from the chapters while Sayori is caught staring absentmindedly at the pages, earning her a sharp jab in the ribs from Natsuki, who begins lecturing her friend to start paying attention. For a moment, Sayori had thought of jabbing her friend back like they had always done in the past, before she was struck by the memory of all the bruises along her body, and kept her hands to her side as they continued reading.

“OK everyone, it’s that time again!” Monika announces to the clubroom, resulting in all the club members pulling their poems out of their notebooks and heading over to the center of the room to share. Instinctively, Natsuki takes her poem to share with Sayori first, as they had normally done in the past.

“Um…hey Nats?” Sayori asks sheepishly. “If it’s ok, uh… I’d like to share with Monika first, if that’s ok.” This results in a sharp, slightly offended glare from Natsuki.

“Seriously, what’s up with you today? You don’t wanna share poems, you don’t wanna read with me, you don’t wanna talk? Like, if you’re upset with me you can just tell me!”

“It’s not that! I’m not mad, I’m just… I mean, I don’t know how to tell you!”

“You know what…whatever, I don’t care.” Natsuki pouts before reluctantly making her way towards Yuri. “If you’re gonna be a jerk and not talk to me like a friend, then I don’t wanna talk to you at all.” Natsuki walks away from her friend, before shoving her poem into the bosom of Yuri, who is clearly shaken by the whole incident. As the situation concludes, Monika makes her way towards a visibly shaken Sayori, who is desperately trying to hold back her tears.

“Hey.” Monika whispers to Sayori. “What just happened? Are you two gonna be ok?”

“Yeah…” Sayori replies silently, trying in vain to hide her feelings from the club president. “It’s just…I don’t… can you please read my poem Monika?”

“Oh.” Monika says, taken aback by the peach haired girl’s sudden assertiveness. “Well we’re already sharing poems with one another, so I don’t see why not.” Monika takes the poem from Sayori’s trembling hands and begins to read to herself.

****

**_Bruises_ **

_Bruises. All along her skin._

_Bruises. My silence is my sin._

_Bruises. Across the body of my friend._

_Bruises. Can I stay silent till the end?_

_Bruises. Bright shades of red and blue._

_Bruises. What can I possibly say or do?_

_Bruises. From where, from what, I don’t know._

_Bruises. My friend can never let them show._

_Bruises. Here, there and everywhere._

_Bruises. I want to show that I care._

Monika stares Blankley at the page, seemingly collecting her thoughts as she typically does before saying something important. Monika hands back the poem and takes a breath before she begins speaking.

“So, you know about her too?”

Sayori reels back, unsure of what to think about her friend’s response to her poetry.

‘Was she talking about Natsuki? How did she possibly know? Is she bluffing? She couldn’t possibly know what I learned, she hadn’t told anyone. Did Natsuki tell Monika but not me? Why would she do that, doesn’t she trust me? Why can’t I help her, am I really just that bad of a friend? This is why Kaito moved schools, because he can’t stand me, and the same thing’s gonna happen now, **why is this happening to me? Why am I like this? God, why did Kaito stop me that day,** ** _I don’t deserve to live, I’m fucking garbage, I hate this so much, please make it_** _-‘_

Sayori’s inner thoughts are immediately interrupted by Monika putting her hands on her shoulders, telling her to calm down. When Sayori comes back to reality, she soon realizes that she had started crying and everyone in the clubroom was staring at her, with Natsuki looking especially worried about her friend. Sayori, unaware of what to do in this situation swiftly rises to her feet and runs out of the classroom. Sayori runs into the halls, past the classroom and into the stairwell. She finds herself alone on the steps and she falls down as her sobs begin wracking her body. The pain in her chest makes her curl herself into a ball, hugging her legs to her chest, something she hasn’t done since her last episode years ago. Her sobbing continues for several minutes, tears stinging her eyes and makeup running down her face until she’s startled by a small gentle hand, rubbing the back of her head. Sayori peers up slowly, mentally preparing herself to face who she believed would have been her battered friend, but is instead met with the distressed, yet oddly soothing gaze of Yuri. No longer alarmed yet still unable to speak without sobbing uncontrollably, Sayori lays on the steps as Yuri gently rubs her hair, waiting for her classmate to settle down. After the torrent of tears and running makeup comes to an end, Yuri decides to speak.

“Are you ok?” Yuri asks, her voice gentle and smooth, free from her usual stuttering and anxious waffling.

“Yeah.” Sayori respond, her voice weak from the fit of crying. “It’s just…I…I don’t wanna talk about it.” Sayori braces herself for the torrent of follow up questions that she had become accustomed to from Natsuki. However, Yuri simply hums in compliance and continues to hold onto her acquaintance, much like a mother, cradling her newborn child. In that moment, Sayori felt a deep trust in, and respect from her classmate she had not previous felt, partially due to the emotional instability she was currently feeling after her breakdown. Cautiously, Sayori begins to speak again. “It’s just that…”

“Hm?” Yuri’s head perks up.

“Yuri? What do you do when you know something about a person, and you want to help them, but you don’t really know how?

“Mmm…” Yuri furrows her brows and looks away, the way she usually does when she’s thinking deeply about something. With respect, Sayori allows Yuri the time to think, genuinely unsure of what the answer may be. After a minute, Yuri chimes in again. “For me personally, I’ve never excelled at social interaction, so my instinct is to not bother the person, and to not be bothered by them in return. However, I know very well that we’re two very different people. I could speculate about you all I want, but I don’t believe that I can truly comprehend your morality from a simple conversation such as this. I’m sorry Sayori, but I don’t think I can answer that question for you. That decision is something you’ll have to make for yourself. The most I can tell you is to ‘do what you believe is right’, but I have the suspicion that that’s not the answer you’re looking for.”

Sayori looks away towards the bottom of the stairwell, disappointed with the answer. “What if…” Sayori asks, quieter than last time, as if afraid of the answer she’ll receive. “What if I know the right thing to do, but it could hurt the person I want to help? Should I just not say anything and pretend it’s not happening? I know I have to do something, but I don’t want her to have to-” Sayori cuts herself off. To her horror, she realizes that she had just revealed the person in question, whether intentional or not. Sayori looks away yet again, unsure of where to go with the conversation and unwilling to look her classmate in the eyes after her blunder. There’s an uncomfortable pause as the tension hangs in the air, like a cloud trapped within the confines of the stairwell, before Yuri interjects yet again, her gentle voice taking on a tone of understanding and sympathy.

“I know it’s none of my business, an…and I’d prefer not to get involved in your personal life, but…but I know that she cares about you. And I feel that keeping a secret from her will do nothing but act as a cancer upon your friendship, killing your relationship as it grows.” Yuri begins to gently squeeze Sayori’s shoulder, as though she were attempting to get Sayori to look at her nonverbally. Sayori takes the hint as she turns to face Yuri, who in contrast to her normally shy and reclusive self, wore a stern and confident look as she spoke. “It may hurt you both in the short term, but in the long term, you’ll at least be able to trust one another. A single cut is easy to hide from the world, but once you learn that you can hide it, you will begin to see them as normal place. You’ll gather more and more, hiding them away from the prying eyes of everyone you care about…until one day you can’t.” Yuri’s voice begins to falter slightly, as though her own analogy were disturbing her. Despite her discomfort, she continues. “And when the truth is revealed, and you must come to terms with what you’d been hiding, and suddenly that one cut upon a clean canvas, has become a tapestry of scars upon your skin. All the normalcy of your life fades, as you scream at yourself that it all started with one single cut. It never would have happened if you just-“ Yuri is interrupted by a hand on her shoulder, shaking her back to her senses. Unbeknownst to her, she had been raising her voice as she became overexcited in her analogy and was immediately struck by a monumental wave embarrassment and anxiety. “W….Wh…I mean… you shoul…I…erm, I..”

“I think I get what you mean.” Sayori interjects, sensing Yuri’s discomfort by her past outburst. “Thank you so much Yuri. I think I know what I have to do now.” Sayori gives Yuri a hug before standing back up and heading towards the doorway, where she waits for Yuri who’s still seated on the stairs. “Are you coming?”

“Uh…you go ahead” Yuri replies, her confident, stern tone totally absent from her speech. “I’ll be right there, I just, I…erm…I-“

“I gotcha. Ya know Yuri, for someone who doesn’t really like social intercations or whatever, you sure know a lot about this kinda stuff. You’re so smart!” Sayori flashes Yuri a big smile, before heading out of the doorway.

“Yeah…” Yuri whispers to herself, as she gently stroked her writing arm. In one fell swoop, she lifts the right sleeve of her uniform shirt down to her elbow, revealed a vast display of scars running all along her arm. Yuri takes a moment to run her finger over a few of the scars, new and old, littering her pale skin. Yuri’s finger taps a particularly sensitive scar along her wrist, causing her to wince in pain, followed by a quiet moan that unintentionally escapes her lips. Yuri, resisting the urge to pester the wound further, cups her arm in her hand, and bites her lip in an attempt to silence her oncoming sobs.

Things had eventually calmed down within the literature club in the hour that followed Sayori’s meltdown. Monika was working on an upcoming assignment she had for another class at the front of the room, Yuri was keeping to herself, getting lost in her novel and enjoying the tea she had made once she came back from the stairwell, and Natsuki was reading her manga by herself in the corner, clearly flustered, but still enjoying herself. Sayori however, was staring at her desk in fear of what she knew had to be done once the club was dismissed.

Once she had left the stairwell and finished fixing her makeup in the bathroom, Sayori had returned to the classroom and met with Monika, who was currently siting at the front of the classroom, phone in hand, waiting patiently for her club members to come back. She talked to the club president about what had happened in the stairwell, and after apologizing for her outburst, explained to her that if it were ok with her, she would like to lock up the club that night, so she could have a chance to talk to Natsuki privately. Monika, balancing the heavy burden of making Sayori accountable for the club and her absolute care and respect of her classmates, begrudgingly agrees to Sayori’s demands, handing her the keys to the classroom.

The only part of her plan she had failed to account for was what she was actually going to say to Natsuki. She couldn’t just come out and tell her what’s going on, especially now that she’s upset with her for ignoring her. With that thought came another problem. What if Natsuki just wouldn’t want to talk to her after the club? What would she do then? She can’t simply trap Natsuki in the room and force her to tell her what’s been happening. Technically she could, she had the keys to the room, but her plan was to gain her trust, not to scare her friend and have the cops called on her. These thoughts continued to bother her until she was snapped awake to the sounds of Monika wrapping up the club for the day, giving Sayori a nod from across the room, which to her misfortune Natsuki had taken notice to. Sayori began to wrap up her things, continuing to brainstorm ideas as to what the hell she was supposed to ask her friend as the other girls did the same. While packing, Sayori was able to catch a glance at Natsuki putting away her things. She seemed to be taking her time, delicately placing the volumes of manga in the box they came in one at a time, almost like a ritual of sorts. ‘Was she going slow on purpose?’ Sayori thought to herself. This idea had put her at peace, knowing that as awkward as the upcoming encounter was sure to be, it would at least be consensual, and no one was going to have to lock anyone else in a room together.

The door sifted into position as it was closed by the Monika and Yuri, who had already left the club. As the click of the door sounded within the interior of the classroom walls, a tidal wave of anxiety and stress had struck Sayori straight in the chest. The silence of the room, along with the tension of what was to come, had begun to intimidate her, and for a brief second she had contemplated walking away, pretending as though she was just looking for something in her bag and had finally found it after all the time. This thought was immediately killed, as Natsuki finally broke the silence, still sifting through her manga.

“So, what do you want?”

“uh…huh?” Sayori sputters out, caught off guard by the pink haired girls’ interjection, as though her words were a knife, cutting straight through the tension into her.

“Do you think I’m stupid? I know you wanted the room to yourself, so you could talk to me, I saw Monika give you the keys and everything. So, what do you want?” Natsuki, begins making her way over to Sayori, her smooth strides giving no indication to just how infuriated she actually was.

“I just…” Sayori begins, but her words immediately get caught in her throat. She feared that she wouldn’t actually be able to talk to her friend in this state. In all the scenarios she had predicted, even in the most extreme examples, she had at least been able to stand her ground. She had been prepared for the yelling and tears, she hadn’t been prepared for this. “I… wanted to talk to you.”

Natsuki’s face lowers into a scowl, clearly frustrated by Sayori’s stalling. “No shit Sherlock, about what?”

“I just… it’s about how you’re, it’s… I don’t know…”

“Ok enough of this shit!” Natsuki slams her hands down on the desk. She had clearly been fed up with Sayori’s evasive attitude, and she was finally ready to make it known. “I’ve been waiting all day to hang out with you. It’s the ONE thing I had to look forward to today, and now you’re gonna start playing this game with me again? This isn’t the first time you acted like this ya know? I would have thought that we could talk to each other like friend, but apparently not. So go ahead, if you don’t wanna be my friend just say it…” Natsuki, unable to look Sayori in the eyes as she finished her sentence, looks away at the floor, pouting with her arms at her sides, as though she were trying to look more assertive. Sayori, stunned by her friends’ sudden fit of yelling, is unsure of what to say. However, she’s well aware that her silence is about to end her friendship with Natsuki, and she knows that can’t allow that. Her thoughts are once again interrupted as Natsuki piped up again. “Ok, I’m fucking done.” Natsuki grabs her bag in a huff, wincing as the bag hits her back. The image of her friend in pain sends Sayori over the edge. She finally says what was on her mind, louder than she imagined she would.

“I know about your bruises!”

Natsuki drops her bag. She turns to Sayori with a look a shock but remains silent. They continue their staring match for what felt like ages, until the pinkett finally chimes in, filling the room with a noisy, forced laugh.

“That’s what this was all about? Seriously? Dude, I got these when I was getting out of bed! I hit my back on my bedframe! You seriously are an idiot Sayori.” Sayori responds immediately, clearly unsatisfied with the answer.

“Is that where you got the bruises on your neck? And on your eye?” Sayori can no longer hide her frustration and begins yelling at her friend. “Can you stop lying to me! I’m your friend, all I want is to help you! If someone’s hurting you I wanna know!”

“Hehe, wh…what do you mean ‘if someone’s’ hurting me? Can you chill out I’m fine!” Natsuki shoots back nervously. She folds her arms and begins rocking back and forth ever so slightly, a tick that Sayori noticed whenever Natsuki was telling a lie.

“Natsuki, you’re rocking…” Sayori states coldly. The false smugness and confidence Natsuki had been wearing up until this point dropped from her face entirely, and in its place formed a heavy scowl, as though it were trying to make up for how afraid she was. Without a word, she marched over to her bag and begin to leave the classroom, but Sayori instinctively ran in front of the door, a part of the plan she had HOPED wouldn’t happen.

“Sayori get the FUCK out of the way!” Natsuki barked at Sayori, who stood her ground in front of the entrance. “I told you I’m fine, I’m not gonna talk to you just move!”

“No.”

“Sayori I’m not kidding move! JUST MOVE!” Natsuki begins shouting and punching Sayori, to which she quickly grabs her wrists, ending the assault before it began. Natsuki begins trashing around while she screamed obscenities at her friend, before eventually falling down to her knees, tears rolling down her face in droves. As Yuri had done for her, Sayori gets to the ground with her and wraps her in a full body hug. The protests did not last long before Natsuki began hugging the ginger girl back with full force.

The scene lasts for at least ten minutes, before Natsuki finally speaks, her voice slightly squeaking from her strained vocal chords. “I’m…I’m sorry I hit you Sayori.” She promptly forgives her, wiping the tears from her friend’s eyes before walking her over to a set of chairs. Natsuki plops down on one of the seats and buries her face in her hands as Sayori takes the seat next to her.

“I’m sorry I had to tell you like this, I just got so worried about y-.”

“It’s not your fault.” Natsuki shoots back quickly, revealing her bloodshot eyes to Sayori as she continues. “I just didn’t want you to get involved, I didn’t want anyone else to know how fucked up I am…”

Sayori rubs her hand down Natsuki’s back gently, taking care as to not upset the bruises strewn across her body. “You’re not fucked up Natsuki, and it’s not your fault at all. I just want to know who’s doing this to you, so we can do something about it.”

Natsuki panics and shouts at Sayori, telling her that she can’t tell anyone about what she knows. Sayori, clearly startled, begins again softly.

“W…why not? If another student is hurting you, we can just tell the principle and-.”

“It’s not another student…” Natsuki begins breathing heavily as more tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes. “That’s…that’s why you can’t tell anyone. It’s not anyone at school… it’s m…it’s my… my d….” Natsuki fails to finish her sentence as she begins to break down hysterically, while Sayori scoots over to hold her close yet again. While she’s relived that no one at school is bullying her, the realization of what she was trying to say is far more haunting. It’s one thing to have someone at school hurt you. At least once school is over, you can go home and forget about it for the rest of the day and feel safe within the walls of your home. How are you supposed to feel safe when it’s your family doing it? The only people in your life that are supposed to protect you and make you feel safe? The ones that are supposed to love you no matter what? What then?

The crying continues for several minutes until Natsuki begins again. “Sayori…I need you to promise me that you won’t tell anyone else.”

Sayori, slightly afraid of the consequences of her silence, attempts to make her objections known before she is cut off yet again. “I know you want to help ok? I know… But if anyone finds out they’ll take him away, and then I’ll be homeless. I know my cousins can’t take me cuz they’re nowhere near the school, and mom is…gone. I won’t have anywhere else to go.”

“You could come live with me!” Sayori blurts out, unsure of why she really said it. She knows full well that her parents would most likely tell her no. Despite this, Natsuki looks towards Sayori with eyes of hope.

“You don’t think your parents would let me live with them, would you?”

“I mean, it may take a lot of convincing, but my parents are really nice! I’m sure they’d understand!”

Natsuki, doubtful of the invitation, but also filled with a distant sense of hope, turns away from Sayori, responding with a simple, “I’ll think about it.” For a moment, the two schoolgirls just sit within each other’s company, Sayori holding the petite girl in her arms while the tears slowly dry up on both of their faces.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.” Sayori chimes in. “It’s just… I thought that you wouldn’t be able to trust me if I told you, or you’d hate me or something.”

Upon hearing this, Natsuki decides to speak up, feeling guilty for misjudging her friend. “No no no! Don’t be sorry! If anything, I’m sorry for not trusting YOU. It’s just… how do you tell your friends about this kind of thing? I didn’t want to make things awkward between us, and most of all I didn’t want you worrying about me all the time…worst of all is, I’m still afraid that’s gonna happen now.” Natsuki tenses up. “It just feels like, now all you can see me as is a poor little puppy who’s gonna bring everyone down. Sometimes I really wish that I could just be like you… to just handle everything with a smile and not let any of it get to me, but I can’t help who I am.”

Sayori’s heart drops upon hearing her friend reveal this about herself. Sayori takes a deep breath, and slowly begins to speak.

“I’m, not perfect Natsuki. I’m far from perfect actually. I’m…far from happy.”

Natsuki looks back at her friend once again. “What? What do you mean?”

“Do you remember three weeks ago? When I didn’t show up to school for a really long time?”

“Yeah, your parents told me you had pneumonia and had to go to the doctor.”

Sayori begins trembling after hearing this. “Yeah…that’s not really what happened.” Natsuki looks inquisitively at her friend, but chooses to stay quiet, opting to hear out the rest of the story before interrupting. “You see…the thing is… I’ve had really bad depression my whole life… Most days it feels like a struggle to get out of bed, on top of having to go to school and act like a normal girl. Most days just… hurt. Sometimes I want to just lay in bed and…never wake up.” Teardrops begin forming in Sayori’s eyes, the memories she recalls still being very fresh in her mind. Her friend simply stares at her with wide eyes, unsure of how to process what she had been told. “I try so hard to be happy for the same reason you do. I don’t want people to have to worry about me all the time. I hate feeling like a burden to everyone, sometimes it feels good, but other times it feels like a bat being swung against my head…well, the day before we had the festival, Kaito came over to check on me-“

“Wait, that boy you used to hang out with all the time? What happened to him?

“Oh… apparently his parents said that they were moving to an apartment a long way away because they couldn’t afford the house anymore. It was really short notice. I was in the hospital at the time and nobody told me because they didn’t want to make me feel any worse…

“Wait you were in the hospital? I thought you were just, I… what the hell happened?” Tears begin rolling down Sayori’s face as she continues. “Well, after he left I went over to his house to go see him again since my thoughts wouldn’t stop screaming at me. I went over to his house and right on his front porch I saw…him and Yuri kissing.”

“Wooooah, hold on what?” Natsuki shouts before stopping herself, sensing that she shouldn’t interrupt at such a sensitive moment. “Shit sorry, go on.”

Sayori chuckles slightly before wiping her tears away, “It’s ok, well anyways after I saw them, I didn’t know what to do. I ran all the way home, and all I remember was how much pain I was in… it felt like someone had just stabbed me in the chest. And I didn’t know what to do, I just wanted to pain to stop…so that’s what I tried to do…I tried to make it stop.”

“Sayori…please don’t tell me you did what I’m thinking right now.” Sayori pulls down the collar of her shirt.

“Do you see it, you might have to look closer.” Sayori shows off her bare neck, revealing a long-patterned line spanning across the entirety of it. “My dad was really into outdoors stuff, so he had a really long thing of rope in the garage. When I was bored one time, I learned how to make a hangman’s noose, so I just-“

“STOP! Please, I don’t want to hear anymore!” Natsuki shouts, stopping Sayori’s story right in its tracks. Sayori wipes her face once again and regains control of herself as she looks back to Natsuki once again, who’s face reveals a mixture of anger and despair, knowing that she almost lost her best friend and would have been non-the wiser. After a brief moment, Natsuki finally asks what had been on her mind.

“So…what happened when you…ya know.”

“I don’t remember a lot of what happened, but I was told that when I finally blacked out, Kaito had come into my room and got me out of the noose. After that he called an ambulance and then my parents.”

Natsuki stares at the floor, taking in what she just heard. “Holy fuck…” She whispers to herself.

Sayori grabs hold of Natsuki’s hand and strokes it gently. “But you see? We both have pain in our lives that we don’t want others to know. The only reason I told you about it is because you told me your secret. I just wanted it to be fair!” The statement hangs in the air for a moment, before Sayori receives a tiny smirk from her friend.

“That’s not how that works you dummy, you didn’t have to tell me…but, thank you for trusting me.” Natsuki begins squeezing Sayori’s hand, causing her to wince a bit. “You…you’re my best friend Sayori…I… l….I looo…I erm…”

“You what?” Sayori says with a condescending smirk of her own, playfully jabbing Natsuki in the cheek before being swiftly swatted away.

“You know what I’m trying to say you dumbass, don’t make me say it out loud!” Natsuki snaps, her cheerful laughter breaking the tension of their previous conversation.

“I feel the same way, don’t worry.” Sayori says under her breath, but not quiet enough for Natsuki to miss, as she begins wildly blushing from her embarrassment.

“Ok, enough with the emotions! I gotta get home soon or my da…well, you know.” Natsuki states begrudgingly, as she places the box of manga back into the closet and gathers her belongings.

“I know…don’t forget about my offer ok? I’ll beg as long as I have to for my parents to let you stay! Don’t worry about that!” Sayori flashes a reassuring smile at Natsuki, who reciprocates the gesture with a toothy grin of her own, showing off her large canine tooth.

“Alright, just don’t try too hard ok?” Natsuki says, as she stands in the doorway getting ready to leave.

“You go ahead, I forgot I still have to lock up the room for the night.”

“Eww, well have fun with that haha!” Natsuki states as Sayori looks up from the chair she was carrying over to it’s appropriate desk. The two girls stare into each other’s eyes one last time, bathing in the warmth of each other’s company, before Natsuki wordlessly leaves Sayori by herself in the clubroom. Sayori takes a moment to sit, breathing a sigh of relief that the encounter AT LEAST had a happy ending. She may not have been able to fix everything going on in Natsuki’s life, but it was a start. She had given her a glimpse of hope, a chance to kindle a relationship with someone that made her feel safe when no one in the past would have. She’s given her a shoulder to cry on, and better yet, the relief of knowing that there’s another person in her life who shares her pain. Smiling to herself, Sayori gets back to cleaning up the room, excited to know that tomorrow, she’ll get see her friend, and ease her pain again.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed! Depending on how this is received or whether or not I have time (as I am currently working on a much larger project) I may write more for you all. Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> -D


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